I Rather Be in Tier 1, 2, and 3. GTFO Tier 4 Imbalance!

Waaagh! Happy holidays everyone. Today I re roll again and created an Engineer. I hit rank 5 and really enjoyed the career. So far I have two careers in tier 4 and just do not feel like playing them. I play Order on Monolith and it is extremely depressing. The population imbalance and the mood of players on the Order side speaks for itself. Going from tier 3 to 4 is like night and day. Everything seems some what balanced and enjoyable in tiers 1-3.

In the lower tiers, you can easily find a PQ, oRvR, and miscellaneous groups throughout each zone. Players respond positively and commend each other on a job well done. It feels exactly the way it should, like a community. I have to say the past few weeks the low tiers are extremely active. Both sides showing up in full force attacking and defending objectives. The way is should be really. However, once you cross that threshold called tier 4, the community turns to utter shit.

Step foot into any tier 4 zone and the QQfest begins. The region chat is filled with players arguing and qqing like it is an Olympic gold medal competition. I see all the points being made but the manner in which it is being discussed is the most depressing. It seems more like a shouting match then anything. You can feel the frustration and anger some of the players share. To summarize it in to one word, I would say it was a feeling of hopelessness. If Order takes an objective, it is because Destruction allowed them to so they could flip it back immediately. It basically turns into a game of musical keep chairs, until Destruction decides otherwise.

I tried logging on and playing my characters in tier 4, but it normally turns out to be a big disappointment. ORvR is a joke when you are outnumbered. It doesn’t matter how well you play or how organized you are when you are severely overwhelmed by a sea of players. In order to complete anything, you spend the majority of your time trying to stay one step ahead of the zerg. It’s pretty sad really, is that what oRvR is suppose to be? A game of cat and mouse? I would say if Warhammer Online fails it will be because of the population imbalance. The problem is who do you blame, the players or Mythic?

A lot of players of course will blame Mythic, but I blame the players. I personally have been following Warhammer Online for over four years now. I was dead set on becoming a Destruction career. Until reports started showing a huge incoming imbalance leaning toward the Destruction side. Like a lot of other players, I decided for the sake of balance to choose the side of Order. It was actually pretty funny, because throughout open beta, preview, and preview weekend plus I only played Destruction careers. Luckily for me though the classes are somewhat mirrored and the transition wasn’t so bad. At first I thought a lot players would do the same, but boy was I wrong.

If you look around, most servers have a much higher Destruction to Order ratio. I guess a lot of players just wanted to look cool and evil rather then play a balance game. I know there is a lot of discussion on this matter, but anybody with half a brain knows most players select Destruction because they cosmetically look better. This is a fact and anybody that disputes it is simply in denial. I also feel that most players did not or continue not to switch to Order because they are waiting for other players to do so. That’s why I simply do not see a fix to population imbalance. Unless more then a quarter of Destruction players decide to switch over to Order. Which will never happen!

So here I am today, re-rolling yet another career so that I can enjoy the game again. The sad thing is when I created my new toon I actually considered moving servers and abandoning my characters. There are rumors and whispers of servers where there is somewhat of a balance. I fought the urge of course and decided to stay. A decision I hope I will not regret in the future.

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6 Comments »

Long time reader, first time poster. Great post, and I think you are right. I have really been taking my time with the game, and am still in the last part of t3 with my first character, a shadow warrior.

Given that there is an imbalance, and the imbalance has considerable effects on game balance, fun, and experience, how would you suggest Mythic solve it? I wonder if they will have to offer XP bonuses to only Order characters… or limit any new destruction characters… thoughts?

Will,
Absolutely not. Giving an XP bonus to Order will not solve the issue. Order already has an easier time leveling due to the imbalance of numbers, Pwnsan will pop more scenario’s than I will in any given tier because I have larger que’s to wait in. The “defensive” nature of the Order classes also allow them to level easier in a non RvR enviornment. In reality, it’s easier for an organized party of Order to take down an organized mirror Destruction party depending on what classes are involved. If you’ve ever played StarCraft, think of Order as Terran and Destruction as Zerg. It takes alot more zerglings to take out one marine then it does vice versa. In fact,the only completely balanced Destruction classes at this point are the Black Orc, Witch Elf, and maybe Shaman, in my opinion. Every other Destro “mirror” significantly lacks compared to their Order mirror. I believe the design was intentional. Mythic saw the population imbalance coming before the game launched, remember a little website called “Road to WAR”?

Pwnsan,
You good sir are frustrated,I get it! I get frustrated when I pop a Grovord Caverns SC and get completely smoked 500 to 26 and only receive 500xp while all of Order pops 28,000+xp for the same amount of time played (a theme which recurrs continuously througout most of the tiers). Then I get to spend another forever waiting in queue to pop another. I didn’t roll Destruction because of aesthetics, PERIOD!!! In fact, I didn’t make my final decision on which Faction or Class to play until the game launched. I was in beta and played both sides of the coin. I enjoyed my Engineer, BW, and really was leaning toward playing a RunePriest for launch. As you know, CoW has both an Order(Badlands) and Destro(Monolith) faction, so I even had an open option while being able to stay with my guild. My decision came down to playing with my RL friend that brought me over to WAR and then choosing a class that the guild was lacking most. My RL friend was dead set on playing a Magus (the least played Destro class), meaning I was rolling Destruction. CoW prepped pre-launch, and believe it or not a majority of CoW Destro side was rolling healer and tank archetypes. At the time we only had 3 people signed up for Melee DPS, 3. Out of nearly 80 people only 3 were signing up for all of Destro Melee DPS (Witch Elf, Marauder), 2 of the 3 were Marauders. My choice was easy. In retrospect I do not regret my decision, I love my WE because her playstyle is cicumstantial and she never always have an “easy” time.

Regarding, the demoralization of Order on Monolith. Yes, T4 ORvR is probably very discouraging for you, because a majority of Destro has finally found it’s way to endgame. The “mindless” zerg is actually quite the opposite of “mindless”. You’ll be amazed at how organized we are. A majority of what you’re seeing is the coordination of two Alliances equating to a handful of Warbands. It’s not impossible for Order to muster a handfull of Warbands. We are very tactical and alot of what you’re witnessing is mis-perception. It’s not the zerg that’s fun, it’s the coordination and comradarie we have. Order has some very strong guilds that do a very good job at holding us off. Altdorf has yet to be unlocked. Everytime we get close, Order has enough to keep us pushed. Maybe it’s more of Order’s dissention in rank and file than the perceived zerg that’s causing the problem.

I have to agree with Pwnsan that Tiers 1 through 3 are more enjoyable because they are more balanced, more fun.

The problem with tier 4 oRvR is that it just isn’t fun getting rolled every time by two to one odds.

You guys have 2 well organized Alliances, great, good for you. You have to realize though that your opposition consist of the equivalent of one organized alliance. If it wasn’t for the hardcore Order players on Monolith you’d have no opposition.

I agree though that xp bonus by itself will not fix the problem. Either they have to make Order sexier or more powerful for a large number of players to start playing Order. Otherwise Order will always be the underdogs. Monolith is just an extreem case.

I honestly can’t see any resolution to this problem unless Mythic forces players to play Order. Every time a new player installs this game and decides to play Destruction the problem just becomes worst. Regardless of all the red flags they see or hear they continue to add to the problem. You wanna know why, because it’s easier to join a winning battle then losing one. Of course there are some exceptions but not enough to make a difference.

@Xo
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You say it’s easier for an organized group of Order to take down an organized mirror Destruction party. That might be true in a controlled setting but in a unbalanced setting like 10v15, 20v30, and 30v45 that will not be the case. Regardless of skill level or organization Order just cannot match the numbers of active players Destruction can provide at any given time 24/7 on Monolith.

In regards to why I feel there are more Destruction players then Order I said “most” players select Destruction because of aesthetics. There are always exceptions. However, at this point in the game that is the most common reply that new/old players give when asked why they decided to go with Destruction. Hell, even I think Destruction looks better then Order. Do I believe if Order careers looked more appealing that it would effect whether or not a new player would select Order over Destruction. Yes I do.

The demoralization of T4 Order on Monolith is due to the overwhelming amount of active players that Destro has in comparison to Order. Which simply put is because of the population imbalance. I don’t believe I ever referred to Destro as a mindless zerg. It’s pretty obvious you have to somewhat organized to gather together so quickly to attack and defend several objectives at once. I used the word zerg as means to describe an overwhelming force that you have to avoid in order to get anything accomplished.

I think you are being nice when you say that Order did a great job at keeping you guys out Altdorf. In reality if the server didn’t crash Altdorf would be in ruins today. Not to mention both sides could not function to its full capacity because the server couldn’t handle it. Which was to Orders benefit.

@ Aneya
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Looking back, I think my server made the wrong decision on transferring here. What we should have done was pick a server where it was completely unbalanced. The fact that Monolith had a good Order>Destro ratio actually attracted too many Destro. I miss my old server now, I would give an arm or a leg to be able to have 1v1 or 2v2 warbands in a T4 zone now. Oh well, I’ll just hang around in tiers 1-3/SCs and enjoy the game until things get fixed.

I blame the players but not for the reasons you give. I blame players for wanting to just be able to log in and ORvR without any thought for organisation/strategy.

Order on my server (Darklands) were exactly like you described a few weeks ago. Their negativity was self defeating. They thought they were outnumbered and so wouldn’t try, this made them really outnumbered.

Then I think some decided to make the best of a bad situation and have since been winning zones left right and centre. The core guilds of order have worked together, sure one guild cant feild a warband but maybe 5 can feild 2 or 3. The Zerg is not smart. Organised groups of players are able to lock zones easily when the only competition is the zerg.

Whats my point? Something can be done about it. A core group needs to step up and start making connections. Organisation can beat numbers up to a point (and youd be suprised how high that point can be). You will also be suprised how many fair-weather player then start turning up as well.

Sorry if this isnt that well written. Not a blogger. Just like reading them.

Glen, it’s funny that you say it’s not well written because you are not a blogger. I don’t even consider myself a blogger. Writing is the thing I hate the most! I hate writing reports, letters, memos, and etc. but somehow I ended expressing my thoughts online just like you are now.

I see what you are saying Glen but the situation is a bit different on Monolith. There are plenty of Order players that try to fight against the grain, but we are just simply overwhelmed beyond belief. We just do not have the numbers to provide more then a flip of an objective. We cannot hold it for an extended period of time even if we tried. The situation is so bad a Mythic Developer finally acknowledged the problems we are facing on Monolith and said the following,

I wanted to let you all know that the community team has seen all of the posts concerning the population on Monolith, both here and on the VNBoards, and we have passed them along. I don’t have any news at this time, but I wanted to, at very least, let you all know that you are being heard.

Hello fellow students and visitors! My name is Pwnsan and I’m the level 100 Grandmaster of Gamejutsu. I created Gamejutsu because it’s a dangerous world out there for us gamers. Sometimes when your totally owning newbs …